Brandeis 51, Edinburg North 14 (final)

Brandeis holds on by the same score they held through most of the fourth quarter, 51-14.

Spoke with Copeland, by the way, and he said he’s fine. Has a bruise of the biceps to go along with a slight foot injury, but said he would be good to go next week. He also said he could have continued playing today if it were a close game.

Copeland has his upper right arm taped and is holding ice on the area.

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Brandeis tacks on a 37-yard field goal from Hunter Boelhauf to lead 44-14.

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Brandeis is about to score again, but the most pressing issue for the Broncos is that Noah Copeland is on the bench with people tending to him. He appears to have dinged his wrist or elbow, as trainers are testing the strength of his grip. We’ll try to keep you posted on this…

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The second half just started and the Broncos have already scored again. Copeland took the first play from scrimmage up the middle for a 67-yard, untouched touchdown to lead 41-14. Copeland has 245 yards on the day.

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Brandeis might have just closed this one out on the final play of the first half, as Kyle Sewell completes a Hail Mary pass of 47 yards to Dominique Britto to take a 34-14 lead.

Edinburg North blitzed Sewell, but he flushed to the right to create enough time to heave the deep pass. Britto, with his feet firmly planted at the 1-yard line and arms extended high, caught the ball at the 1 and fell backward into the end zone for the score.

Talk about a death nail.

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With Edinburg threatening to make it a one-score game again, who else comes up with a big play for Brandeis’ defense but Cody Rogers.

Rogers intercepts a pass at the goal on second-and-goal from the 2-yard line to preserve Brandeis’ 27-14 lead.

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Brandeis pushes its lead to 13 on a 44-yard touchdown strike from Kyle Sewell to John Jackson. Jackson had one-on-one coverage deep and went up and made a play for the ball to haul in the TD pass.

The play came two plays after Brandeis’ defense came up with a fourth-down stoppage on fourth-and-1 from its own 33-yard line.

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Copeland scores again, this time on a beautiful 35-yard gallop down the right sideline to take a 20-14 lead. The PAT sailed wide right. On the run, Copeland evaded an attempted shoulder tackle from a dfeensive lineman at the line of scrimmage and went the rest of the way virtually untouched.

The TD drive went nine plays for 78 yards.

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The Cougars scored on a 65-yard screen pass to wide receiver Danny Cardenas, who went the distance untouched to even the score at 14-14 in the waning seconds of the first quarter.

Brandeis blitzed on the play, but Edinburg North had the perfect play dialed up to counter the rush. Munoz got rid of the ball quickly and they had the edge sealed for Cardenas to bust loose.

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Brandeis strikes once again, this time on an 11-yard run up the middle from Noah Copeland. Copeland was virtually untouched on the run. Brandeis leads 14-7.

Copeland already has 65 yards on six carries.

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Edinburg North answers with an impressive nine-play, 88-yard drive to even the game at 7-7 midway through the first quarter. Quarterback Matthew Munoz capped off the drive with a 7-yard touchdown run on a designed pass that he took to the end zone by weaving his way through traffic.

The Cougars are primarily a passing team, and Munoz went 4 for 4 on the drive.

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Brandeis wasted no time in getting on the scoreboard, as Kyle Sewell connected with Dominique Britto for a 31-yard score on the Broncos’ first drive of the game. Britto was wide open by almost 10 yards thanks to the defense biting on the play-action fake to Noah Copeland.

The drive was aided by an Edinburg North offside penalty on fourth-and-3, which Sewell created with a hard count that drew a defender across the line prematurely.

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Here at the Alamodome for today’s third-round, Class 5A Division II clash between Brandeis and Edinburg North. The Broncos are on a nine-game winning streak since losing to Clark, 33-14, on Sept. 12.